Imagine if Hawkeye was the one that got to leave instead of Trapper.
1. Hawkeye also fails to leave a note goodbye, but he leaves his blue Hawaiian shirt. Trapper's yellow one is mysteriously missing. I think rather than going to Kimpo Trapper gets depressed until BJ shows up, and even then it takes awhile for him to warm up. He's a little less willing to open his heart after his best friend leaves. He cheers up when Hawkeye mails him and BJ is a good guy so they do click eventually.
2. Trapper gets so much mail. Hawkeye subscribes him to the Crabapple Courier. He sends treats and jokes. Good booze one day and a dead fish another day. Radar begs Trapper to please reign him in. Hawkeye writes as much as Peg writes B.J. At first B.J. thinks the letters and gifts are from Louise. Trapper replies with something like: my wife has much better taste. My mistress on the other hand...
3. You thought the Trapper Complex was bad. Hawkeye was the chief surgeon and no one EVER shuts up about him both socially and professionally. Even Frank will do it in his own backhanded way. The Hawkeye Complex has its own gravitational field.
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4. Frank amazingly becomes chief surgeon because Potter thinks it makes sense to do it by rank and immediately regrets it. Has to basically fill the role himself until Frank leaves and before Winchester arrives. He gives it to Trapper which immediately causes friction with BJ who thinks Trapper shouldn't get it just because he's been here longest. This is made worse by Trapper being ambivalent and not the least bit competitive.
5. Trapbeej friendship dynamic is way less internal squabbles than Beejhawk, way more torture of Frank. Trapper is kind of surprised that Hawkeye was the voice of reason in retrospect because it did not seem like he was until Frank wakes up on top of the hospital in Klinger's negligee one day. Despite being Frank's main antagonist, Hawkeye also had an equalizing effect on BJ and Trapper. Trapbeej together is like turning up the volume. It's because of BJ's fraternity background paired with Trapper's football background it makes em a little nastier. Rip Frank.
6. Trapper doesn't offer information about himself easily and BJ bottles things up. Trapper is less inclined to push BJ into confrontations, BJ is committed to the bit of being Mr. Nice Guy. They get along well, stick together, do bits, but the few fights they get into are long and nastier than either would have had with Hawkeye. BJ's self-pity over missing his family and taking it out on everyone is even harder to swallow for Trapper who has been there for years and also has a family. Which in turn has BJ mad because of Trapper's chronic cheating seeing it as Trapper not appreciating them and saying things that imply he thinks he loves Peg more than Trapper loves Louise because he's loyal (even with his affair still taking place.) It takes a lot to really piss off Trapper so yeah, I think it gets bad and other parties have to intervene to help them make up.
7. There would be a weird Dartmouth vs Harvard rivalry thing with Trapper and Charles. BJ is surprised because usually Trapper isn't particularly competitive. Charles being from Beacon Hill does not help. The GFA storyline probably has both of them with their names forward as chief of thoracics at Boston Mercy. This isn't to say they hate each other, but it's a side of Trapper that is rarely seen.
8. I just had the thought of Hawkeye starting to write BJ too since he's his replacement. Hawkeye is bored. He wasn't as screwed up by the war as canon but he still watched his childhood friend die on his table. He is trying the small town doctor thing as he works through his issues. His dad starts leaving out travel brochures after two months. BJ is not enthusiastic about his new penpal. He also apparently has no choice because Pierce will write him whether he replies or not. Not even about interesting things, just whatever seems to be on his mind at any given moment, or about the numerous projects he starts and abandons with his free time. He sends the swamp rats one of his insomnia birdhouses. It doesn't have a hole for the bird to get into.
Trapper (fond): you should meet him in real life. Never shuts his mouth.
Beejtrap but it's just them pranking each other into a relationship. Like, it'll start out as bj growling at Trapper for playing tic tac toe on his forehead while he's asleep. Then develops into their favorite candies being hidden about their shared living space. With the exact moment their relationship switching from best friends to partners. Being something like a divorced dads camping trip with them and the girls.
Cause despite their faults,despite their different communication styles. The moment the other sees how they act around the kids breaks down that final barrier between them. For bj especially,cause how could he stay jealous and angry at the man who's trying to make a rough time memorable for both their kids? How could he stay mad at the person who's in an equally sad state of affairs,and yet is still out by the river teaching his daughter how to fish and build a campfire?
i have really neglected the beejtrap agenda in recent months huh? anyway, trapper would call BJ "honeycunt" and claim that's "just how we say it in Boston"
oh oh oh. 18) "Settle down, there, drama queen," beejtrap?
please forgive my amateur league beejtrap, I'm new to this game. 😅
"Settle down, there, drama queen," Trap huffs, as BJ squirms away from him. "You're fine."
"Not until you get away from me with those tweezers."
"Oh yeah? You want to pick stones out of your own leg, be my guest. Or, you can shut up and be a good boy for the doctor."
BJ snorts, annoyed, but settles back in against the bed.
"Ain't your wife got a problem with you riding that death trap?"
BJ smiles, a little wanly, distracted momentarily from the pain as Trap continues picking bits of gravel and stone from the road rash on BJ's leg. "Nah. She'd be busy picking stones out of her own legs."
"Well I've got a problem, what about that?"
"What about it? I can look after myself."
Trap looks from his tweezers, holding up a particularly sharp rock he's just dug from the soft flesh above BJ's knee, to BJ. "Right."
"D'you baby Hawkeye this much, or is it just me?"
"Maybe I want you to live a long life. Sue me." He drops the last stone into the basin. "You might want to lay off wearing skirts for a while."
BJ laughs. "I'll keep that in mind. Thanks Trap."
"Meant what I said before," Trapper says idly, as BJ tugs his pants back on. "Want you to live a long life."
"For Hawkeye, right?" BJ asks, as though this will somehow take away from Trap's meaning. "Or Peggy?"
"Right. Yeah. Oh, and Hunnicutt?"
"Yo."
"Next time you take your pants off in front of me, I'm charging you double."
BJ laughs. "You bet."
I've been listening to Unholy and all I can think of is like. Postwar BeejTrap where BJ is going behind Peg's back to do the dirty with Trapper at every available opportunity. Meeting in alleyways behind bars or wherever Trapper is staying to get absolutely railed by Big John
The realization that wanting to be in Hawkeye’s life necessarily meant having Trapper John McIntyre around hadn’t been a particularly welcome one, but BJ was learning to adjust. Yes, he frequently felt like the odd man out, competing with a history he’d missed years of, but that was fine. It had to be fine. He didn’t have any choice in whether it was fine or not if he wanted to have the opportunity to watch the sunset with Hawkeye out the window that faced the ocean.
Hawkeye cared about him enough to make room in the life he’d formed with McIntyre, but BJ was certain that McIntyre couldn’t feel the same way. The man was compulsively flirtatious, incapable of keeping it in his pants, and attractive enough he got away with it: your average sex addict. There was no chance he saw BJ as anything other than a convenient spark of variety in the bedroom.
BJ jolted out of his thoughts and his book when McIntyre set a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of him.
“Honey in that,” McIntyre said, taking his own mug to the armchair he’d quickly claimed as his own. He took a sip, snorted when his glasses fogged, and took them off to scrub the moisture away on the hem of his sweater. “You get so cranky about how much sugar Erin gets, but that’s kinda bitter. So.”
BJ picked up the mug of tea. Sniffed it. Chamomile. “Why?”
“Hell, I dunno why you’re cranky about–“
“Why the tea?”
Trapper blinked at him over the rim of his glasses. “Said you were having trouble sleeping. Helps me, ‘cause I sleep for shit since I started worryin’ about the choppers.”
The warmth in BJ’s chest couldn’t be from the tea, because he hadn’t yet taken a sip. “Thank you.”
Trapper shrugged. “Made a kettle-full anyway.”
Something pulled BJ to his feet. He set the mug back down, dodged the puzzle Erin had left out on the floor, and stood in the gap between Trapper’s legs because one was thrown over the armrest.
Trapper squinted up at him. “You ain’t gonna slug me ‘cause I thought you’d want tea, right?”
What sort of image had he cultivated that Trapper made those kinds of assumptions? That wouldn’t do.
BJ set one hand on Trapper’s raised thigh, ignored the frantic pounding of his heart, and dipped in to press a thank-you to Trapper’s lips.
He pulled away before the hands that came to rest on his waist could catch him and keep him there.
“You always say thank you like that?” Trapper asked, breathless.
